Best DS9 Stand Alone episodes (list them all)

[McDuff]

I see the OP got plenty of suggestions over the weekend

All that said, to the OP - not sure what you are getting at here,

There's nothing I try to get at. It just for a change of pace. Don't you feel sometime like watching an action movie or a romantic comedy even if you prefer sci-fi? I felt like watching some stand alone episodes with high sci-fi concept this time around.

Anyway there's no episodes in any TV shows beside sci-fi anthology that are truly stand alone even in TOS, TNG and Voyager. They all bring us some new insight into the characters reactions to events or the world they inhabit. Hard Time was a high sci-fi concept mostly stand alone but it still brought us intense character drama for miles and somehow we learned more about him and also try to imagine how we would react in similar situation.

By watching many episode of season 5 lately. I think almost every episodes got a stand alone component (a story with a beginning a middle and an end) and are part of the bigger overall story and character arc at the same time. My preferred kind of TV show. I think DS9 fans tend to exaggerate the serialized nature of the show if I use season 5 as representative of DS9.

Thank you for people who posted their suggestions for high sci-fi concept stand alone episodes. I've (re)watched a couple of them already. If you got some more, you can keep them coming.

 

[Navaros]

DS9's very best SciFi episode is Captive Pursuit; it is also a stand-alone episode.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Though not the best, one of my favorites is Take Me Out to the Holosuite. Yes, it's part of the Dominion War arc, but frankly it has so little to do with the war that it might as well be a stand-alone episode. The war just gets a line or two of lip service and that's it, which is really no different than the stand-alone episodes that name-dropped the Dominion but otherwise had no hand in the build-up to the arc.

I have always disliked that episode. It's portrayal of the Vulcans betrays an utter disregard for Vulcan culture and attitudes on the side of the DS9 writing staff. The Vulcan Captain is depicted as a petty racist biggot. His views border on fascism. I have always found it disturbing how this episode asserts that someone with views like that could become a decorated Starfleet Captain.

Butbutbut it was funny. And Spock > the entire crew of T'kumbra, so Vulcan reputation among viewers is still intact. If anything, this episode reminded the audience how important it was to take a breather now and then -- "It's just a TV show, so we should really just relax." Lastly, it's a great Rom episode.

And an afterthought -- while not high concept, it's a lot in the realm of classic sci-fi in that we don't get a lot of technobabble and we don't get "science-as-magic" that would define Star Trek as traditionally sci-fantasy. Rather, we do get an episode where the conflict is solved by the characters' personalities (not their equipment), and the super-advanced technology is used to connect to the modern day; there's a parallel, but not a giant one, that even with all this tech, it really is teamwork and camaraderie that unites a group. Not the strongest character-driven episode, but I'm surprised at how much the episode moves forward because of the characters.

I've always like Take Me Out to the Holosuite exactly because its portrayal of Vulcans is different from Spock. Not all Vulcans can be exactly like Spock, there has to be some variety - just like not all Humans can be like Kirk.

I've seen a lot of people say that they don't like how Vulcans are portrayal in DS9: The Maquis and DS9: Field of Fire as well because the Vulcans aren't Spock-like. And I can't describe the amount of internet rage directed at ENT Vulcans (which I also don't agree with).

For me, I think Trek is at its best with it shows us some different takes on the alien races, instead of making them all one monolithic block. Just as in real life there are people who are borderline (and not so borderline) racist, terrorist gun-runners, psychopathic killers and imperial jerks, it only makes sense for another fictional species to have the same variety.

I don't understand why so many people object to it. After all, I don't see as many people complaining that all 24th century Klingons aren't like Worf.

 

[Navaros]

I think DS9 fans tend to exaggerate the serialized nature of the show if I use season 5 as representative of DS9.

That may by so, however, in this thread, DS9's serialized nature has been under-exaggerated.

I.e. The Ascent and Treachery, Faith, and the Great River were mentioned. Both are masterpiece episodes, but are they stand-alone? No, not really. True, they do not have the "Last time On DS9...And now, the continuation/conclusion..." narration at the start; therefore, they can be technically called stand-alone. But to just watch those episodes without having first seen the years of build-up which supports them in the content of previous episodes means that the viewer is not getting anywhere near as rich of an experience as he would if he had seen the build-up content.

The same could also be said for other episodes mentioned in this thread, such as To the Death, Hippocratic Oath and Far Beyond the Stars.

The reason you don't recall a lot of SciFi DS9 episodes is simply because there isn't alot of those. DS9 is primarily a human drama show-that's what the lion's share of its content is devoted to-not a SciFi show.

As well, the few times DS9 did do alien-of-the-week shows (almost all in the early seasons), most of those episodes are horrible and hence no one mentions them, I.e. Move Along Home, Sanctuary. Captive Pursuit is probably the only good alien-of-the-week episode in the whole series. There are some other great episodes featuring aliens, like Vortex, but the alien-ness of the guest character(s) is mostly a moot point in those cases. Chimera is another great alien-based episode, although it's not an alien-of-the-week.

Also, I forgot to mention in my previous post that Shadowplay is another great SciFi episode, and stand-alone IIRC.

The Abandoned is another great SciFi episode, and is not totally stand-alone, but somewhat.